Il6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO]776. 



stricture was so much lessened, as to permit a free discharge of his water, and 

 by these means he obtained a complete cure : for, in 1 months after, he left the 

 town in every respect well. It was remarkable, that during the progress of the 

 cure no urine was perceived to ooze involuntarily through the opening; but it 

 was always retained till the patient, prompted by a fulness of the bladder, made 

 his water, as has been related. 



Dr. H. subjoins that he had neither heard nor read of any method of per- 

 forating the bladder similar to that here related, before Sir J. Pringle informed 

 him that it was not a new operation ; and that he would find an account of it in 

 Pouteau's Melanges de Chirurgie. Dr. H. had since procured the book, and 

 read the paper with great satisfaction, and was much obliged to Sir J. P. for his 

 intelligence. He did not presume to claim any merit from a thing which took its 

 rise from mere accident. The obstruction which the pipe met with when the 

 patient's mother attempted to give him the clyster, suggested the method of 

 piercing the bladder by the anus ; and he was persuaded, that the same thought 

 would have arisen, on a like occasion, in the mind of any thinking man. And 

 he begged Sir J. P. would believe, that he had no small satisfaction in finding it 

 occurred to M. Flurant, the ingenious author of the paper on that subject, in 

 that publication, from a circumstance which, though not exactly similar, 

 amounted nearly to the same thing. This surgeon having introduced his finger 

 into the anus, to examine the state of the bladder, in order to perform the 

 puncture in perinaeo, found it so round and tumid, and so much within the 

 reach of his instrument, that he thought he could perforate it with safety in that 

 place ; and, from a little reflection on the structure of the parts, was convinced 

 of the expediency of operating in this manner, in preference to any other. 



Dr. H.adds that he had found a composition of calomel and opium, in large 

 doses, the best internal remedy for suppressions of urine, in general ; and that 

 he had repeatedly seen this medicine succeed after the usual means have failed. 



He was convinced, from these trials, that the principal or specific efficacy is 

 in the calomel, as large doses of opium alone, or joined with camphire, have 

 proved unsuccessful. He was so well satisfied of the advantages of this practice, 

 that, if called early in the disorder, he directs, 10 grs. of calomel, with 2 grs. 

 of solid opium, made into a bolus with any conserve, to be taken immediately, 

 and repeated in 6 hours. He had seldom occasion to order a 3d dose, the pa- 

 tient being generally relieved by the 2d, if the first has foiled. He did not ad- 

 minister it in the case here related, because the alarming situation the patient 

 was in when he came to him required the bladder to be emptied without delay. 



XL. Observations made during the late Frost at Northampton. By A. Fother- 



gill, M.D. p. 58-. 

 This account relates to the severe frost on the last 4 days of Jan. 1776, Tlie 



